Thursday, 24 December 2015

The “Twitter Mob” and Free Speech – A Systems Perspective

Some Thoughts on the Christmas Message of David Robertson, Free Church of Scotland

Recently David Robertson, Moderator of the Free Church of
Scotland, delivered a Christmas message where he said society was becoming a
monochrome culture where genuine diversity was being undermined by a “mob mentality which threatens
anyone who dares to be against the ‘equality and diversity’ agenda” [1].His address was treated to considerable
negative comments, illustrating the very point he was trying to make [2]. One
newspaper headline put it “Twitter mob puts free speech in peril” [3].

The point David Robertson was making is that it is now very
hard for Christians to express their views in the public sphere as the climate
has shifted to a liberal humanist position that denies core Christian beliefs,
values and morality [4]. As the balance of beliefs has shifted those opposed to
Christianity find it easier to express their views, often in quite hostile
tones.

I think anyone who has observed the changes in political
correctness over the years will have noticed this trend. What was unacceptable
in the past is acceptable now and vice versa. Essentially there are two
competing ideologies: the Christian one of the past, and the Humanist one now
[4]. What David Robertson has described in his message is an example of a System
Dynamics archetype called “Success
to the Successful” [5].

Consider two competing opinions 1 and 2. The number of
people who hold opinion 1 will influence the amount of expression of opinion 1,
top right in the “casual loop” diagram below. The more people, the more
expression – the plus on the arrow means “change the same way”, i.e. “more” in
this case. The more expression of opinion 1 the more the climate of society
favours opinion 1. The better the climate for opinion 1 the more confidence
people have in expressing the opinion. The greater the confidence the more
opinions expressed. This is the reinforcing feedback loop R1 in the diagram.

On its own reinforcing feedback will give accelerating
growth, limited only by the physical ability and need to express opinions.
Without any competitors society favours opinion 1.

However if there is a competing opinion, number 2, then
there is now a parallel structure, except that this one moves the climate away
from 1, towards 2. The more
expression of opinion 2 the less the climate of society favours 1 – the minus
on the arrow. If the climate now favours 1 less then there will be more
confidence in expressing opinion 2 – the minus sign means the change is the
opposite way to the cause. This gives a second reinforcing feedback loop R2.

Let’s say opinion 1 is Christian and opinion 2 is Humanist.
While Christianity was strong in society loop R1 was dominant and loop R2 would
make little effect, keeping humanism as a small non-influential minority. The
essence of the success to the successful archetype is the one side excludes the
other; there is no healthy coexistence, but competitive exclusion.

However two things have happened over the years. Firstly, as churches have got weaker and declined, the number of Christians, those
holding opinion 1, top right hand corner of the above diagram, has declined, thus the
link to expressions of opinion 1, the Christian opinions, has declined
weakening R1.

Secondly those sympathetic to the humanist position have
been able to have more influence on the ruling and media elites, who in turn
have been able to take actions to favour the humanist opinion – thus
strengthening R2. As R2 has come to dominate over R1, many more in power and in
the media have jumped on the bandwagon making R2 stronger still.

Thus it looks like Christianity in its traditional and Bible
believing forms is heading for exclusion by an intolerant humanism promoting an
ideology of diversity, equality and tolerance! Irony intended. Success to the successful,
and the winner is humanism!

A few things need to be remembered.

1. In many countries now, and in the past,
Christianity has been excluded from the public stage. In fact that is where Christianity
started and remained for 300 years. It survived, it grew, people were saved,
God was glorified.

2

2. Most people are not ardent supporters of
either Christianity or humanism and don’t express strong opinions. Thus they do
not appear in the casual loop diagram above. Ideological battles are usually fought
out by minorities. But over time people without strong views get attracted to
one of the ideologies, usually to the nicer one. In the past Christianity won
out over paganism because Christians treated people better. How we as
Christians conduct ourselves in the current climate will be just as important as
the things we say. Some of the current political correctness is really nasty
and dictatorial, Christians must not respond in kind.

3. The
call on the church is to make converts. If Christians put more effort into
personal witness and seeking converts, and concern themselves less with
changing the climate of society, then it will in time lead to an increase in
the number of people following Christianity. This personal witness is a reinforcing loop, R3, increasing the most important
variable – the number of Christian believers – those with opinion 1. See diagram below. Some of
those converts will come from opinion 2 – the humanists, which will further
weaken the hold of humanism on society R2.

4. We also need to remember that God
is real, He created everything, controls everything and He is not in the
business of losing! Christians take your confidence from Jesus, his power and
his call, not from the climate of society.

OK this is highly simplified and you may be able to think of
all sorts of things to add to the diagrams, but hopefully it gives an
indication of how system dynamics and systems thinking can give insight into current
issues that affect the church. Sorry it is a bit rushed - but Christmas beckons - Alleluia!

References

[1]Moderator's Festive Message, David Robertson, reproduced on the Free Church Web Site
23/12/15

[4] By “Christian” I mean the part of the Christian
church that believes that beliefs, values and morality are revealed by God and
are thus unchangeable. By Humanism I mean that these things are determined by
people and can be changed from what they have been in the past. The contrast is
whether the source of authority is God-centred or man centred. People do not
fall neatly into the two fixed categories. Humanistic thinking pervades the
Christian church and not just the “liberal” part. Politicians can defend Britain
as a “Christian” country by claiming some of its values, even though they have
on other occasions supported beliefs contrary to revealed Christian belief. See
today’s Christmas message from the Prime Minister saying that we are a "Christian" country. But what he means by Christian may not mean what a Bible-believing Christian means.